The Evening Leader

SM police back on bikes

St. Marys Chrysler recently donated 4 bikes for patrol

- By SKYLER MITCHELL Staff Writer

The St. Marys Police Department has been lucky enough to receive a donation from St. Marys Chrysler in the form of four new police mountain bikes.

St. Marys Police Chief Jake Sutton was proud to announce that the organizati­on has received the bikes from the business and finally getting them in.

Sutton said St. Marys Chrysler Operations Manager Scott Nuttle was big part of the process, having gotten the idea after interactin­g with some officers at a football game.

“He had an interactio­n with some police mountain bike officers and he just found it was so much easier to approach them as opposed to an officer sitting in a car,” said Sutton. “Which is very true. He just wanted to help and do whatever he could to promote that here.”

Sutton stated that the police department had bike patrols in the city before and had been wanting to make it a more prominent thing in the community.

The donation came in at the right time.

“We’re very fortunate to have

that donation and my hope is, especially with events like First Friday, and a lot of the summer events that are coming up, they’re going to see the bike patrol officers a lot more,” Sutton said.

The SMPD is thankful for the donation and are happy that the idea came to Nuttle when it did.

Sutton said Nuttle has connection­s to organizati­ons like Let’s Back the Blue, a county-wide organizati­on aimed to helping out

with police department needs in Auglaize, which made sure to keep the situation local for everyone involved.

“We’ve had a need for new police mountain bikes for a while, but with budgets, it’s one of the things that got pushed back several years,” Sutton said as being why they held off on getting the new equipment themselves. “So this helped us get it done a lot sooner.”

Sutton and the rest of the police department are always happy to receive the support that they do, especially from the people

they work hard to protect. They aim to make sure that this one is used for the betterment of the city, especially during the summer.

“We’re very tickled to have such a generous donation,” said Sutton. “We don’t usually get them like that. We’re always appreciati­ve to the donations, especially during Police Week.”

Make sure to keep an eye out for future events to support the local police in your area. For more informatio­n on how to donate, feel free to visit websites like LetsBackTh­eBlue.org.

 ?? Photo provided ?? St. Marys Chrysler Operations Manager Scott Nuttle, as well as Finance Manager Rob Bechtel, stand with SMPD officers with the mountain bikes they’re donating to the organizati­on. The police department had been looking to replace the current mountain bikes in order to be able to use their bike patrol more often.
Photo provided St. Marys Chrysler Operations Manager Scott Nuttle, as well as Finance Manager Rob Bechtel, stand with SMPD officers with the mountain bikes they’re donating to the organizati­on. The police department had been looking to replace the current mountain bikes in order to be able to use their bike patrol more often.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States